The Dance of Life
by MyImagination339
Summary: Dances are quite uncommon in Kahona, so when one occurs everyone goes. When Lady Tsunade plans a special dance for all of the ninjas of Kahona everyone is hyped up and exited, that is except for Mara. She’s terrified of going to dances! Cont. Inside
1. Chapter 1

**The Dance of Life**

Summery: Dances are quite uncommon in Kahona, so when one occurs everyone goes. When Lady Tsunade plans a special dance for all of the ninjas of Kahona everyone is hyped up and exited, that is except for Mara. She's terrified of going to dances! Why is Mara so afraid? Can a close friend help Mara over come her fears?

Warning: There will be cursing, violence, and rape within this story. (Rating: PG – 13)

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters. Just my OOC character(s). (I know, every gets tired of seeing these things. But I'd rather put it in to be safe rather than have my story deleted and having to start all over again)

(Names from (except for Mara)

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Chapter 1 – The Invite from Lady Tsunade

"Gai Sensei, why did you call all of us? Did we get a last minute mission again?" I questioned him as I stood next to my team mates with a rather annoyed look on my face from being disrupted from my spar with Tenten.

Gai Sensei has been notorious for pulling last minute missions up unexpectedly and making us do them. Everyone, but Lee, got quite annoyed with the fact that he did it.

Gai Sensei let out a small chuckle.

"I wouldn't consider it a mission, but if you want you can. No, the real reason I called our group meeting is that Lady Tsunade made an announcement earlier today about this!" He said as he flashed a note in front of us.

Silently and quickly, I grabbed the note from him and began reading it quietly.

"…Well, what does it say?" Lee questioned with a beaming smile on his face.

Neji and Tenten just stood there waiting.

I let out a small sigh. I knew I was going to regret reading this later.

"It says:

Dear Kahona Ninjas,

In honor of all your hard work, I have decided to hold a dance. The date is set for a week after the Chunin exams. The location is set to be at the mansion of Lady Yoshimoto Hana on the north end of Kahona. Everything will be provided. Please dress in your nicest clothing. This dance is mandatory and you are to have a date.

Good day,

Lady Tsunade"

(Ooc: I know, that was badly written. But I'm not the greatest when I comes to connecting to Tsunade's personality )

"That's only a month away!" Shrieked Tenten as she noticed how close the Chunin exams were.

"I don't honestly see what's so big about these dances anyways," Neji stated as he just stared off into the clouds.

"Well, we're all going and that's final," Implied Gai Sensei with a stern, but happy, look on his face.

"Yosh!" Said Lee as he jumped up with excitement, ready for his first dance.

This would be the second dance in my lifetime. Flash backs of last one slowly flooded out from the back of mind.

_Flash back to three years ago_

"_For being ten, you're a good dancer," my boy friend, Akihiko, as we danced to a slow song. _

_This was a business ball being hosted at Yoshimoto mansion for my father and the company he worked for. It was said that this ball was a celebration for a new branch that was built in another country that I never heard of at the time. Being ten, I didn't really care much about what was going on in the world. _

"_Thank you Akihiko," I replied with a small blush on my face as the song ended. "…Well, I should go and find my father. _

_Right as I turned around and began to walk off, I felt someone grab me by my hand and jerk me back. _

"_Wait, before you go, I want to show you something," said Akihiko as he began to drag me off into an empty corridor. _

"_O…okay," I managed to stutter, trying to understand what he was doing. _

_Suddenly Akihiko pulled me into an empty room far from the ballroom. By this time I was getting worried. _

"_A…Ak… Akihiko, what are you doing?" I said nearly in a whisper as he locked the door and turned out the lights. _

"_Just having a little fun," He said whispering in my ear while unzipping the back of my dress. _

"_Akihiko no!" I screamed as I started struggling, struggling for my life …_

"_Mara…Mara…_Mara!" I could here as the flashback was cut short.

"Mara, is something wrong?" I could hear worry in Tenten's voice.

I didn't notice how bad I was shaking or how bad I was crying.

"I'm sorry," I said as I roughly wiped at the tears that flowed down my face. "I…I got to go."

I turned and started running. To where, not even I could have known at the time. I just wanted to get way…away from the memories.

"Mara, where are you going?" I could hear Gai Sensei call out to me.

"Just let her be," I could faintly hear behind me as I continued running.

(Ooc: That was Neji saying "let her be")


	2. Chapter 2

Yeah. This is really late compared to Myimagination339's chapter. Like her though, I don't own Naruto, and the only name I own is Lindsay.

I was in a spar with Kiba, and it was a good thing that Kurenai sensei called us all over, because I was getting ticked. Kiba knew long-range attacks weren't my specialty, and he had been taunting me from deeper into the trees. And everybody knew that I had next to no tolerance for taunting and teasing.

"Kiba, I thought this was supposed to be a fight, not a game of hide-and-go-seek!" I grumbled as we walked over to Kurenai, Shino, and Hinata were waiting.

He clapped a hand on my shoulder as he laughed. " Not my fault that you're the world's worst seeker, Linds!"

"Hey!"

"Alright you two, that's enough." Kurenai sensei smiled. She was strict, but she seemed to be in an especially good mood today. "I've got something to tell you four. Hinata might already know this, but I thought I'd share this anyways." Hinata gave a small nod, a smile showing she knew what it was about."

What, did some guy break out of prison and we get to track him down?" Kiba asked, bored but curious. "Because we could do that easily." Akumaru barked his agreement.

"No, if that was the case, we would have left already. So what is it?" Shino interjected, becoming impatient with the stalling.

"There's going to be a dance soon, and all shinobi are required to attend." Kurenai handed an already opened envelope to Hinata, who took out the letter and read it with an unusual excitement. By the way her face lit up, she looked pretty excited about all this to me.

"Dear Kahona Ninjas,In honor of all your hard work, I have decided to hold a dance. The date is set for a week after the chunin exams. The location is set to be at the mansion of Lady Yoshimoto Hana on the north end of Kahona. Everything will be provided. Please dress in your nicest clothing. This dance is mandatory, and you are to have a date. Good day,Lady Tsunade."

"Well, this promises to be interesting." Shino said, crossing his arms and looking at the letter in our teammates hands.

"It sounds like it could be fun!" I couldn't help but say. "What about you, Kiba? What do you think?"

"I dunno. I've never really been one for parties. Can't dance." He said as a thoughtful expression crossed his face.

"I thought you would be the type that would love parties." Sensei intervened, her hands on her hips.

"Nah…" I zoned out from the conversation at that point. Kiba's comment had reminded me of something. Rather, someone. I could practically feel my face turn grave as I looked down.

"Is something wrong, Lindsay? You look worried about something." Shino asked in a quiet voice as to avoid drawing the others' attention.

I looked to my left and studiedhis expression carefully. Somehow, he always seemed to be able to tell when something was up.

"That's just it. I am worried. I know one person who absolutely will not be happy about this dance."

"A close friend?""Yeah. She is gonna flat out refuse to go." I groaned.

"I see. Is she anti-social?"

"No, she's just had some bad experiences. She doesn't trust people automatically. Until she trusts you, she's just kin of shy."

Shino was silent for a moment, and then nodded. The group of three continued talking for a minute, and then Hinata turned to me.

"So are you going with someone, Lindsay-Kun? It is a formal dance after all."

"It depends on if someone asks me. If a nice guy asks me, I'll probably say yes." I smiled. Guys had never seemed to show much interest in me as more than a friend, so I was always okay to just stand off with a group of friends. I'd been taught to dance as a child. My father had said that both formal and informal dancing would improve balance, coordination, and speed.

"What about you, Hinata? Is there anybody you want to ask you to go with them?"

"Well,…. Umm…." That familiar bright red blush quickly overtook her face. I had to hold back the urge to giggle.

(Yes, my friend Lindsay is in the story. I myself will have a new chapter up soon for most of my stories by the end of the week due to no school. So keep your eyes peeled)

(P.S. - Go visit her page and look at her stories. She has awsome stories. My character, Kayko, is in her Naruto story. Her username is Just-Skye )


	3. Chapter 3

(Authors note: My friend, Lindsay, will be writing all the even chapters and I will be writing all odd chapters unless noted other wise)

Chapter 3

(Reminder: The bold italics are thoughts and the normal italics are flashbacks)

I sat up and turned to my noisy alarm clock with my eyes still half closed. I've never been a morning person, but being on Gai's team means I have to. I slowly drug my aching body out of my bed and walked over to my window to open my curtains.

"Three days," I whispered to myself as I looked at the pinkish looking sky from the rising sun.

It had been three days since the letter from Tsunade came about the dance. I had been considering my options of what I could do to avoid going to this dance.

"_**Fake an illness? … Nah, Tsunade's a medic, she'll know. Run away out of the village? … That could cause more trouble than it's worth. Ask for a mission a couple days before the dance? … I doubt she'll let me, besides that would ruin it for the rest of the team …"**_

Nothing that came to mind seemed to be of any use of getting out of this dance without suffering a consequence of some kind.

I sighed and walked back over to my bed, picking up a small pile of clothes I had set out the night before and changing into them.

"I'm surprised no one from the team has come after me yet. Normally Gai or Lee would have been here dragging me out of bed," I said chuckling, talking to no one in particular.

(With Team Gai)

The three members of Team Gai met up by their normal spot under the oak tree while listening to their Sensei's normal pep talk before training.

Tenten sighed as she sat down underneath the oak tree, Neji was looking up at the early morning sky, and Lee was looking was being abnormally quiet and looking distant.

Tenten looked over at Lee with a worried look. Never during the time of being on the team with Lee has she ever seen like this.

"Lee ... you seem awful quiet. Something wrong?" Tenten said looking over at Lee.

"It … it is nothing." Lee silently said aloud, and then went back to looking distant.

As a matter of fact, there was something wrong. But it wasn't with him. The problem seemed to lie within the matter of Mara. To Lee, Mara was the tough one … tougher than Tenten or Neji. She never seemed to have anything other than a smile on her face … until the letter from Tsunade came.

"Lee," Tenten said standing up and interrupting Gai's "Talk of Youth". "What's on your mind? I know there is something wrong."

Lee dared to look around at his teammates faces. It wasn't just Tenten who seemed concerned about his attitude.

"Well … I guess I am just concerned about Mara." Lee said in a worried tone.

"We all are Lee," said Tenten.

"But, it is not just Mara I am worried about, it is her reaction to the letter from Tsunade. Something about that letter upset her and we have no idea why. And we have not heard a single word from her in three days."

Not a word was said as Lee finished saying what was on his mind. But he had spoke the truth and what was on his mind.

There was something wrong with Mara … and no one knew why.

(Authors Note: Haha, I leave you all in a cliff hanger. Now it is up to Just-Sky (Lindsay) to type her part up.)

(Other another note: I'm sorry that it took so long to get this up. It seems that come spring, my brain decides to die and put me into a major rut of what I am going to write about. Now that I am on summer brake, I'll be updateing most of my stories soon and even put up a journal)


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